Outside The Box Results Require A Creative Approach; Graphic Facilitation Workshops Can Help

The best leaders recognize that creativity is a crucial asset for productivity and long term success. If you’re reading this, then you probably do, too.

While business “smarts” and creative practices are often painted as being at odds, at ImageThink we believe that they go hand in hand. Visual thinking and graphic facilitation has the power to improve brainstorms, clarify action items, and boost collaboration—all with a marker and white board. But don’t take our word for it; through custom workshops, we’ve partnered with clients like Google and IBM to give leaders and decision makers visual tools to help their teams get on the same page with clear aims, roles and commitments.

Ready to learn how our custom workshops can help your team unlock their creative and collaborative potential?

Learn to visualize your team's big ideas, and use images to create alignment and buy-in.

Find Alignment, Clarify Connections

Whether you work in a company that spans the globe, or a 800 square foot open floor plan, communication is critical. Yet, without consistent effort, silos are inevitable. Folks get caught up in their individual tasks, and the connections between everyone’s work—even when roles are overlap—can be forgotten. That’s no good for morale, or for productivity.

We teach you how to use pictures to succinctly communicate complex concepts, and to apply those to a number of business applications and team building activities. Drawing up timelines and workflows allows your team to see where each person fits in, and how each role supports and depends on the others. Connections between seemingly disparate processes become clear, and you might even find places to streamline your office workflow.

Our Visual Thinking in Healthcare workshop, at Cannes Lions Health, taught people from around the globe how simple visuals could ignite brainstorms and unveil new ideas.

Set Your Brainstorms On Fire

Whether you’re developing a new service or working out the kinks in one you already have, finding new perspectives to old problems can be tough. Maybe you and your team mates can’t come up with anything. Maybe the ideas that do come to mind seem so outlandish that they’re not useful. Or maybe your team is bursting to the seams with innovative ideas—but no one can figure out a way to connect them in a meaningful way.

That’s why we teach teams to use mind-mapping to visualize big ideas, and the supporting ones that branch out of them. The act of simply drawing out conversation will spark new ideas, while clustering like-thoughts together in real time helps to find connections that weren’t initially apparent.

Even better? We don’t just teach your team to draw; we teach it how to listen differently and structure conversations. That means more empathy, more collaboration, and more efficient use of time.

ImageDrink takes drink and draws to the next level, with interactive drawing games.

Network, Make Friends, and Fire Up Those Creative Impulses

In a more casual setting, we’ve applied our methods to our monthly drink and draw series, ImageDrink. At the surface, it’s a lively night of drawing games over drinks. But digging a little deeper, it encourages attendees to solve problems and work together using visuals, improv, and your personal vision.

Want to take a workshop home with you? Whether you're getting ready for an upcoming workshop or simply want a tool to practice what you've learned, Draw Your Big Idea is the perfect take-home toolkit. Co-written by Nora Herting and Heather Willems, has over 100exercises that will provide out-of-the-box approaches to crystallizing your goals and movingto action.

Have We Convinced You?

Join us for our upcoming Visual Leadership workshop, September 14-16th, in beautiful Cape Cod. Attendees will gain valuable graphic facilitation skills to move their team towards alignment and productivity. Never drawn before? No worries! This is the perfect introduction to the power of simple visuals. Register today!

Comics Jams, Drawing Conga Lines, and Beer and Wine: What's Not To Like?

Get some shelter from the dog days, meet new faces and break the ice with drawing games that will get your creative impulses firing.
Berg’n will keep the drinks flowing, and ImageThink will provide the supplies and activities, which will involve team play, improv and some puzzle solving.

Especially for those whose jobs require them to call tradeshow booths home, and whose commute time is marked not in subway stops, but by plane rides.

But the success of a conference depends on its ability to stand apart, break expectations, and find moments of human connection amid the hustle and bustle. Whether you're hosting an internal conference or designing a tradeshow booth, it takes careful planning to make it a success.

Here are a few ways we can help.

Our timelapse promo for Waters Corp set the stage for valuable conversations that continued into and after the Pittcon event.

1) Go Viral to Set The Stage for Success

Successful conferences start long before event day. Social media campaigns build buzz for your conference or booth, set the tone for meaningful interaction, and create a cohesive branding for your organization. With timelapse videos and tweetable infographics, you can be sure to make an impact on your client's social feed, and start the conversation early.

Take Waters Corp, for example. After exhibiting their products and services at the Pittcon laboratory exposition for several years, they needed a new way to make meaningful contact with their clients. With Pittcon2017 just around the corner, they turned to us for a full-scale activation. They hooked the online community with the infographic timelapse above, and continued the conversation onsite with our social listening boards.

Waters Corp captured the hearts of customers and stoked valuable conversation with a social listening mural at Pittcon 2017.

2) Engage Your Audience with Social Listening Murals

Looking for a new way to spark conversation between your team and your attendees? Social listening murals draw people in and keep them talking with you and your team.

With the right question as a prompt, we've seen participants line up to see their answers illustrated in real time by our graphic recorders. And in the meantime, your team has the perfect opportunity to both gather insights from your client base, and engage them in meaningful conversation.

For Waters Corp, the impact of a social listening mural was palpable. With our timelapse promo setting the stage, Waters' sales team kept the conversation going onsite with a social listening mural that asked attendees to remember the moment that inspired them to become scientists.

The result? Real conversation between Waters and its clients that started long before and continued long after Pittcon itself.

For Politico's Outside-In conference on the impact of innovative technologies on the healthcare system, they turned to ImageThink for digital graphic recording.

3) Break Into the 21st Century with Digital Graphic Recording

Ready to engage and excite your audience at your conference with something different? Want graphic recording as sleek and tech-forward as you are? Digital graphic recording is your solution.

Set your conference apart with an immersive visual experience that can scale to the size of an IMAX, or send your message to multiple rooms at once.

Politico's Outside, In focuses on the changing face of healthcare in the United States. It's their job to be on the cutting edge, to anticipate changes in technology, and to understand how it will shape our world. No surprise, then, when they asked us to use digital graphic recording to capture the content of their discussions. Projected to screens at either side of the stage, our digital visuals clarified concepts like tele-health and and tailored care, keeping audience members engaged throughout the event.

Even better? Our digital graphic recordings create instant assets for sharing on social media, and can even be turned into timelapse videos.

Present your ideas visually and get buy-in from your leaders, team members, partners or clients

Use templates and learning maps to engage colleagues or stakeholders in idea development and decision making to ensure high level of ownership

Make complex issues understandable by making the connections visible

Clarify and align goals, actions, and outcomes

Increase the ability of your group to envision the future and to create a shared picture of what it looks like

Use visual tools to help your team and partners to get on the same page with clear goals, roles and commitments

Increase your leadership impact

Energize meetings

Improve skills managing difference on teams

Participants at last year's Visual Leadership workshop learned the power of visuals to create meaningful conversation.

Who Is It For?

This is a beginner course in graphic facilitation. No particular drawing skills are required. You will use simple drawing techniques and materials will be provided. Together, participants and presenters will create a safe learning environment where you are free to experiment and explore new ways of communicating.

Through exercises, case studies and reflection you will gradually hone your skills and develop materials that can be used in your current work or volunteer projects. After the workshop, you will be able to create visual presentations, plan a project visually, and help lead the members of your organization or team in meaningful dialogue and reflection.

The program will incorporate some free time each day to explore the area, practice your new skills or relax at the beach.

Last week, Cannes Lions Health brought together the best minds in healthcare, creative advertising, and industry trends. The goal? To spark meaningful discussion on the future of these industries in the face major shifts in technology that are shaping our world.

ImageThink hosted and graphic facilitated the Unconference Zone at Cannes Lions Health, shaping meaningful discussions and leading participants to tangible insights that popped off the page.

ImageThink led discussions on the impact of the digital revolution on the future of healthcare, at Cannes Lions Health 2017.

During the two days, we guided conversation and visualized perspectives as diverse as the think tank participants. Insights came in from CMO’s, creative directors, influencers, and brands. Their voices represented dozens of countries and many healthcare landscapes.

The weekend culminated with the Visual Thinking in HealthCare workshop lead by ImageThink co-founder Nora Herting and graphic recorder Derrick Dent. Attendees, who came from countries as widespread as Kazakhstan and Denmark, learned to use simple visuals to collaborate, communicate and lead dynamic branding workshops, patient journeys and brainstorms.

Sketchnotes from the Mobile Marketing Association's discussion concerning creativity and culture in marketing.

Drawing Out Unique Insights

In the following days at Cannes Lions, Nora and Derrick met up with some of our favorite clients like Google, IBM and Hearst Media’s iCrossing to create graphic recordings and sketchnotes at engagements and talks throughout the festival.

We learned more about their unique challenges and opportunities in advertising, cognitive technology, and creating meaningful content, while drawing visual summaries that struck a resonance through Cannes Lions’ social media channels. After spending a week ideating with some of the brightest minds in innovation, health, and entertainment, it was tough to say goodbye; but we walked away recharged and ready to collaborate with these champions of creativity, as they lead their big ideas into the world.

On June 17th and 18th, ImageThink is partnering with Lions Health at Cannes Lions in the Unconference Zone. Whether you’re a healthcare professional, a creative partner, or a tech wunderkind, we look forward to picturing your big ideas at Lions Health.

Swing by the UnConference Zone, where we will facilitate four interactive Think Tanks: Brand Reputation, Talent, Digital Disruption, and the Future of healthcare. We can promise vibrant discussion and meaningful connections as you see your ideas drawn into action around content that matters to you most.

Setting The Record in Men's Health

Participants brainstormed over the famous Movember moustache.

Cannes Lions is all about big ideas, and last year's conference saw one of the biggest brainstorms in the world.

In partnership with Guinness World Records, Movember, and Now Go Create, we brought together over 250 participants for a massive creative thinking session, aimed towards finding ways to encourage men to talk to each other about health issues. ImageThink's co-founder and principal, Heather Willems, captured it all in graphic recording.

Cannes Lions 2016 saw Movember attempt to set the record for largest brainstorm, graphic recorded by ImageThink

The result? Big ideas to combat silence, like health clinics in pubs, health manuals at the barbers shop, and a football game where the cost of entry is a conversation about health.

Details and Schedule for the UnConference Zone

What Is It?
The UnConference Zone is an interactive space dedicated to creating meaningful conversations about the future of healthcare, and generating creative takeaways that you can use after the conference is over.

How Does It Work?Jot down your insights on post its, and place them on the whiteboards set up in the space at any time during the event. Then watch as our team of graphic recorders brings them to life with real time illustrations and visualizations. Your unique perspective will join those of the other attendees, and spark new conversation!

Think Tank: The FutureSaturday, June 17; 11:00-12:15

Is our industry really set up and prepared for the future of healthcare communications? Do creatives have a place in the new era of cognitive machines? If you’ve got an opinion on the future of healthcare communications, this is your turn to have your say.

Think Tank: Brand ReputationSaturday, June 17; 13:00-14:15

Do you think reputation is a ticking time bomb for big pharma? Can healthcare learn lessons from technology when it comes to corporate image? How can brand marketers interact honestly with patients while minimising reputational risk? If you’ve got an opinion on the healthcare reputation question, this is your turn to have your say.

Think Tank: TalentSaturday, June 17; 15:30 - 16:45

Is the healthcare industry really set up and prepared for the future of healthcare communications? Do creatives have a place in the new era of cognitive machines? If you’ve got an opinion on the future of healthcare communications, this is your turn to have your say.

Think Tank: Digital DisruptionSunday, June 18; 10:45 - 12:00

Why are all our talented creatives running off to tech firms? How can we get the best ideas out of our creative teams? What skillsets to clients now require from the creative industry? If you’ve got an opinion on the question of talent, this is your turn to have your say.

We know that leadership requires creativity and that collaboration is critical for innovation. Nora Herting, Co-founder of ImageThink, the graphic facilitation firm, will get you drawing and show you how thinking visually can increase your creativity, help you work better with others, and help put your goals into action. Leave feeling empowered with practical tools to transform brainstorms, map patient journeys, and energize meetings.

Want to schedule a one-one-one meeting at Cannes? Make a call with us and stay in the know about how visual thinking can work for your team.

]]>0ImageThinkhttp://www.imagethink.nethttp://www.imagethink.net/?p=110932017-05-02T18:36:06Z2017-05-01T14:41:58Z
Have you ever thought about the back end of your daily transactions?

If you're like most people, the answer to that question is probably a resounding no. Most people tend to leave that issue out of sight and out of mind…until something goes awry.

But as graphic recorders who support hundreds of sessions a year, we find ourselves getting crash courses in industry trends. After all, that’s our job as creative partners—to take complex ideas and masses of information, and distill them into digestible visual content.

Take blockchains, for example. In the most reductive terms, blockchains are public facing ledgers of transactions made in chronological “blocks.” They are what many consider the future of our increasingly online economy…and they are notoriously difficult to explain to people outside-the-know (i.e., people like us).

Yet after supporting several organizations at the vanguard of this new tech paradigm, our team is starting to get a grasp on this still-in-progress digital economy, and how it will impact the way we exchange money, goods, and life-affirming resources.

For this post, we want to use visuals to clarify how a seemingly overwhelming endeavor such as a blockchain ledger can be the answer to creating a transparent, decentralized, and secure financial record. Here are some key takeaways from engagements we've visualized regarding the topic:

It’s more than just finance and bitcoin.

Blockchain infrastructure can be applied to more than just financial industries- medicine, shipping and distribution, and food are all avenues that benefit from the transparency of an open ledger.

There is less concern about corruption along supply chains, or institutions taking advantage of transactional blind spots.

We’re still in the early phases of knowing what’s possible.

Anyone who has worked with blockchain protocols will tell you that it's going to change the world in the same way as... the internet. There's still a lot of development and speculation about the possibilities of these protocols and who's going to be on board.

The ledger records are edited and confirmed by consensus models

This is something that is set in place to ensure that transaction records aren't compromised or disproportionately influenced by one entity. Because these records are open (think Wikipedia) there is no question about where assets and goods are going.

Many businesses are already making plans around this protocol

Many financial companies and institutions are making room for blockchain infrastructure in their long term business growth strategies. While this isn't a central focus for many organizations, it's still too big of a deal to disregard as insignificant or unnecessary.

No matter what your industry, we know it takes a lot of time, energy, and resources to put a strategy session together. At ImageThink, we know how important it is to make the most of the time you have.

Before your session starts, make sure everyone in attendance is on the same page. Not just about the topic of conversation, but also about the purpose of the conversation. Scribe your session objectives up on a board, and refer back to them throughout the day. It's an easy way to make sure you don't find yourself straying into the weeds without addressing the core issues you convened to discuss.

2) Set Brainstorm Parameters

Remember when you were a kid at the grocery store, and you couldn't decide which candy to buy because there were just too many to decide from? Don't let your brainstorm participants be paralyzed by the same problem. Begin each brainstorm with a few pieces of grounding criteria to help set people's mind on the right path. Better yet? Have our graphic recorder scribe these up on a board to serve as a visual reminder throughout the day.

3) Never Leave The Room Without Next Steps

When the brainstorm is really on fire, the last thing you want to do is snuff it out. It's crucial you leave at least 25 minutes at the end of the day to identify concrete action items, owners, and due dates. Without them, your brainstorm will evaporate back into clouds as soon as your team leaves the room.

]]>0ImageThinkhttp://www.imagethink.nethttp://www.imagethink.net/?p=109892017-04-19T18:07:48Z2017-04-18T14:20:33Z
Influencers have proven to be valuable resources for companies around the world, but is there a strategy to finding the right digital marketing partner? Are you a small business and experiencing sticker shock when you approach an influencer? Do they even like being called influencers?

ImageThink was a proud creative partner with VMG at their recent Symposium in San Francisco, which gathered thought leaders and influencers from various industries to talk about marketing. We were there to create visual stories of the content discussed, it was one of the most inspiring events we've ever attended. Here are our top 8 takeaways...

1) Advertising has Evolved into Storytizing

Bob Pearson (W2O Group, author) kicked off the day with an engaging overview of how marketers must become experts in "audience architecture" in order to see alignment with our customers. We found his perspective interesting because it has a strong human element, captivating the attendees right away.

2) Immerse Your Audience with Moment Marketing

When it comes to defining your strategy, legacy builder Martin Morse opened with Walt Disney's vision about creating experiences. He gave a nice timeline of how far we've come in the realm of sponsored endorsements (including a hilarious cookie-cutter tweet from Justin Bieber). He talked about having a tribe of influence and how it's all about the moment you tell your story.

3) Think Outside the Box by Utilizing Micro-Influencers

Denise Lambertson (LMS) continued the discussion about defining your strategy and focused on the power of micro-influencers. If you are a startup or small business, this is beneficial because it's based on mutual growth and you can focus your message to the right people.

4) Careful Vetting of Influencers Will Activate Your Campaign

Stefania Pomponi (Clever) took us through her process of building an influencer campaign by picking the right match for your brand and audience. What we found most interesting was that after vetting, you do not need to control everything they post. They will create the magic for you!

5) Go to the Professionals and They Will Match an Influencer to You

Beca Alexander (Socialyte) presented something that we found very unique and interesting at her company. They have a collective of influencers that provide unique authentic content to specific industries and themes. Their InstaBomb is also an extraordinary way to make a huge impact in a very short amount of time.

6) Digital Earned Media is Key

Conor Begley (Tribe Dynamics) discussed third party/user generated content: why it matters and how you should track it. His perspective is that organic beats out paid marketing every time. Start with a great product (a must in this day and age!), let your audience tell your story, and track their engagement to see results. His talk was referenced by other speakers throughout the event - very interesting!

7) What Influencers Really Want

This panel moderated by the great Alexia Tsotsis, featured Leandra Medine (ManRepeller), Matt Segal (Pro Climber), and Sarah Dussault (SarahFit). It was so entertaining and informative because every question you've ever wanted to ask an influencer was brought up.

The following is a bunch of takeaways rolled into one... The term "influencer" can be a little loathsome, Leandra suggested calling them a "person with a large following." Sarah talked about the differences between a celebrity and an influencer: "we aren't celebrities or actors, though our journey might be similar. We are also more approachable." Matt talked about how brands need to trust them, "we know our own followers, don't be too controlling or make assumptions." They all emphasized the importance of collaboration. There was a lot of laughter throughout this talk, we loved it.

8) Be Invested in Your Influencers

Mehdi Mehdi (NYX) talked about his company's journey and their dedication to the people they work with. He discussed the mutual value that comes out of their collaborations, and how a small business can grow using simple methods. We really appreciated his passion for the creativity of his audience.